Taking a Radio Camping

I have a question for amateur radio enthusiasts:

Let's say "radio 1.0" is as it existed since radio was invented: convert raw analog or digital packets into a signal of a given wavelength as assigned by the FCC for the "type" i.e. nautical, hobby, aero, etc. Roughly associated with physical distance.

It's obvious we have the technology at this point where multiple streams of information can be reconstructed from one wire/pipe. My cable internet is mixed with thousands of other users and yet the cable internet system delivers me just my data.

Why is the airwaves not just another physical medium (metal wire, fiber optic, air)?

If I want to build an amateur transmitter to airstream my Twitch to my friend in Brazil, the FCC would say no, because

1. Can't clutter up the airwaves (the FCC manages the wavelengths) 2. For "safety" (government wants to monitor the stream)

In "radio 2.0" I can build my hobby hardware to whatever transmit power I want and use whatever wavelength I want because air is just another medium for the same signal. My question is roughly, why cant the organizing principles of my router, isp cable internet system, etc apply to over the air transmission?

Is it a physics limitation? Or a "we always did it this way therefore you can't have it" (FCC, etc)

Let's say I hypothetically have a high power handheld transmitter in my pocket powered by modern batteries, the FCC doesn't exist, and the power is the best that the modern batteries can provide, with the only tradeoffs being weight of the transmitter and duration of batteries, i.e. physics based tradeoffs.

Don't we have the technology to mix thousands of such handheld transmitters so that everyone can carry one, broadcast their own stream, and intermix the streams, and deconstruct the stream back to my own data?

The same principles are used and airwaves are just another physical medium. The problems are this is shared media with everyone else and also it's somewhat inefficient media (EDIT: and noisy).

Your hypothetical high powered handheld transmitter (e.g. you cellphone?) is limited by the amount of power from your batteries and other factors.

EDIT: The bandwidth of radio waves is also limited and there's noise which limits the total amount of data you can broadcast.

The purpose of the post is trying to understand 1. can a viable mesh-network exist 2. does the mesh network not currently exist because it's artificially suppressed by centralized networking (i.e. cellphone service providers' influence over the FCC), or 3. Does a mesh network not exist because physics

On point 3, we have made huge strides in miniaturization of electrical components since the dawn of radio; we have also made huge strides in battery technology.

That would suggest it's physically possible to build better devices, so maybe the limiting factor is more #2 nowadays, the ability to innovate is capped not by physics but by regulation.

Sure, things like LoRa exist, but are not widely useful.

If iPhones were a little more brick-like, maybe we wouldn't need to dump money into ISPs pockets; we could just have a standard communication language to bounce packets around. Then we don't need to pay cell phone bills, just buy new batteries.